I'm new to BST and I'm trying to improve my gear. First let me say that my BST is mainly for Dynamis but I do use it for Abyssea solo's. I got a separate set when pet is doing all the work.

Now that I got that out the way, I am trying to build acceptable TP and WS sets without spending ridiculous amount of gil (ridiculous being 6mil+ per item unless I can use it for my other jobs too). I downloaded the BST spreadsheet from Google docs and started to make comparisons. I also looked at numerous BST gear suggestion threads that include the most common gears for BST99 (think Phorcys, Byrnie, Toci...etc). However, everytime I compare one of these sets, my current very mediocre Ferine set wins. So I don't see why an upgrade is necessary. I feel that I have a lot of gears which I'm not using. I learned from my THF days that 26% is a must! Does this also apply to BST? Because the more haste I seem to add, the less DPS I seem to get. Please help me understand this.

Looking at other people's "optimal" sets, and comparing, I don't see how their sets are better in terms of DPS. For example, someone on FFXIAH has the following set (different weapons though) Main: Double Attack % TotM Axe Sub: STR Axe Ammo: Demonry Core Head: Phorcy's Neck: Portus Earrings: Brutal/Suppa Body: Porthos Hands: Brego Rings: Rajas/Epona's Back: Atheling Waist: Twilight Legs: Phorcy's Feet: Phorcy's This results in 179.121 DPS, less than my af3 set. Replacing byrnie with Toci's body puts me at 180.374, still less than my af3 set. So I am really wondering, is it worth it to make the upgrades?

I have a lot of gear which I don't feel like I'm utilizing. I have Oce Headpiece +1 which feels like an improvement over Zelus if the 1% haste can be compensated in other slots, but the numbers seem to fail or I'm not finding the right combination. Same with Phasmida belt/Ogier's surcoat/Mekira. I'm just not sure what's best to use. Should I just stick with af3+2?

To be honest, I don't see myself getting any Phorcy pieces anytime soon because of the difficulty of neo nyzul and lack of dependable members; but it's nice to know what to aspire for just in case I get a group going... Everything else I'm working towards getting (Byrnie included, I have Toci already..)

Here are a couple things to consider when you're plugging gear sets into the DPS spreadsheets:

If we're talking about Dynamis monsters, have you set the "Killer Effect Active?" value to 0? It sounds like your Ferine Gausape +2 setup is winning partially because of this. Otherwise there are buffs of some sort applied to this set that the other doesn't have. To the credit of your Ferine-heavy set, it does get a bit of ODD because of the set bonus for having 4 pieces... Try to estimate this in the ODD Rate field on the main page. Maybe you've already done this. :)

I plugged in the two gear sets you listed, and assumed no buffs - just Red Curry Bun. The 2nd gearset (as bad as it is - 29% haste? Lots of room for improvement...) was still in the lead by at least 5 DPS.

Edit: Oh yeah, and to directly address the topic title, you'll still obviously be rocking the Ferine Gausape +2 set when Killer Effects/Killer Instinct are applicable. It's just all based on your situation. :)

You are right, the reason I was getting those numbers because I had killer effect active for both sets (I forgot to disable it for dynamis, stupid me). Everything else is identical, so Ferine always wins with Killer effects active. When disabled, I compared my original set to the one you suggested (using red curry buns too), result is 148.585 (ferine) vs 151.842 (toci). So it's an acceptable improvement.